The growing climate backlash in Europe

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The backlash is already forcing most European governments to roll back some of the ambitious targets they adopted to address climate change. And that is not because voters doubt the problem but because many Europeans don’t want to pay for the solution.

the decision of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to postpone or push into the more distant future many of his country’s net-zero targets. Mr Sunak’s U-turn was remarkable, partly because Britain has made a lot of diplomatic noise about leading Europe on climate-mitigation initiatives, but also because the British premier’s move was such a naked vote-grabbing attempt, with an eye to his country’s general election due in a year...The Brits can now continue buying petrol-burning cars until 2035; the original deadline was 2030....the British government also rushed to authorise the start of new offshore oil drilling platforms in the North Sea.

France. President Emmanuel Macron, who used to lecture his nation about the imperative of immediate measures to halt the effects of climate change, unveiled last week a new, French-style “ecology doctrine”, in which a lot of the regulations imposed to reduce carbon emissions have suddenly been turned into just recommendations.

European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, is under discreet but sustained pressure from the EU’s member states to dilute some of its environmental protection initiatives. The commission has already watered down proposals to lower petrol-burning car emissions limits. So, old-fashioned combustion engine cars will not only continue to be sold in Europe until the middle of the next decade, but they could also continue emitting more smoke than they should until they are completely off the roads at some point towards the middle of this century.

in the United States, where subsidies to domestic manufacturers of batteries and cars came disguised as environmental measures. 

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